General Questions For A Newbie

I’m new to the Prime 4. Actually, it’s been a while since I’ve been at the mixing console. So here are a few questions I was hoping some experts could help me answer:

#1: Is it possible to color code each of the individual mic buttons. For example, mic 1 = red, mic 2 = blue?

#2: Is it possible to move a song file from the prepare folder to a playlist? Is it possible to move a batch of song files from the prepare folder to the playlist?

#3: Music that is downloaded from Tidal, where are they saved? For how long are they saved on my HD? How many songs can I download from Tidal at any one time?

#4: Will I be able to change the bpm directly on the Prime 4 anytime soon?

#5: What is the difference between Booth out and Zone out?

Thanks in advance for your help!

#1 - No … The buttons will stay in green. You could buy some colored knobs from internet, to color code them.

#2 - No, you can use the prepare folder only to prepare a set. It is more to see as an notepad. If you get a track-wish from a guest, you can park this track in there to play later.

#3 - It saves only 4 files to the internal hdd. Don´t know how long (When you load new tracks, they latest will be overwritten because its more a temp storage.)

#4 - If you play tracks from Tidal, they were first downloaded. After then Prime4 analyzes the tracks for BPM & KEY. If you have fast internet … track will be playable in about 3 - 5 seconds.)

You can use them like normal tracks from your hdd. (Hint: If you plan a gig, you could play a Tidal Playlist from start to end before you go to that gig, so your tracks will be analyzed. (you can do it only with all your playlists (key and bpm will be stored in database - but not all tracks) - If the track is analyzed you can change BPM & KEY anytime. Loadingtime you will have allways with Tidal.

#5 - Booth out is for your monitoring speakers, to compensate delay between the main speakers, if you play on big venues. Zone out is a seperate Outputchannel, where you can send a different Playlist to a second room (Or you can also use it - if you dont plan to play a second room as a recording out, or for another PA where you can change the volume different from the main out.)

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Thank you for your answers. This was extremely helpful!

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Actually I would say that the unit doesn’t “save” any streamed downloads at all. It caches the data so that the track will play if you lose internet connection, but they’re not really saved.

For example, if you load a streamed track to a deck, you will see it downloading before it’s playable. If you try to load the same track later, it will download again - so it’s not stored in that way.

Off line caching is supposed to be coming for the streaming services that offer it, but Tidal doesn’t offer that service.